Innovation generation through formalisation and fairness in university – Industry collaboration
研究调查了德国大学教授在产学研合作中，正式化机制（如明确流程和合同）如何通过提升公平感和信任来促进联合创新成果，发现程序公平和分配公平均能增强正式化对创新的正向作用。
Relationships between universities and industry are a source of entrepreneurial activity and innovation. Considering the complexity of university-industry (U–I) collaboration though, the underlying activities require formalisation mechanisms to help overcome ambiguity, mismatched objectives, demands and expectations to ensure joint innovation outcomes. Fairness perceptions have also been found to determine the success of inter-organisational relationships. However, to date fairness has not been explored in stakeholder contexts, such as those prevalent during U–I collaboration. This research extends knowledge on U–I collaboration processes by exploring if formalisation mechanisms increase fairness perceptions and joint innovation outcomes. We adopt a survey methodology to explore the experiences of German professors engaging in U–I collaboration. Our findings identify that formalising U–I collaborations, through mechanisms such as clear procedural guidelines and contracts which agree responsibilities and outcome expectations, leads to enhanced perceptions of fairness and trust. Furthermore, both procedural and distributive fairness were found to increase the positive effect of formalisation on joint innovation outcomes. These findings advance U–I collaboration and strategic alliances literature through identifying the importance of perceived fairness, which is often deemed to be as important as material outcomes and will impact upon join innovation outcomes being achieved. Furthermore, this research proves the positive relationship formalisation has on innovation outcomes.